I think he thinks he DID write about death and returning from there better than JRRT did. But I still think it is within the framework of "this is how I'm a different writer".
Look, when I wrote my piddly little articles for magazines here and there, I very much was set aback when the very passages I thought were resonant were the ones the editors wanted to re-write. I DID think my writing was better than theirs, and I'm sure there would be many who rolled their eyes saying that editors have tons of experience and tons of expertise and tons of respect from the writing world and who-do-you-think-you-are, you upstart, to disagree with their choices?
And yet... I
did. I absolutely did. I felt that the way I wrote those passages was BETTER, more true, more right, and I still feel that way. I wrote them the way they should be written. Changing them changed everything about what I was trying to convey, and I don't care who would have written it differently. *I* wrote it, and that's what I thought was right.
Am I superior to those editors? Categorically no. Am I right about the utter rightness of what *I* wrote, how it reflects what I meant when I wrote it, how deeply and fervently their words are NOT right? To me? The upstart piddly magazine article writer with no cred whatsoever?
Heck
yeah.
So there you go. Disagreement about style is not necessarily a judgment about "superiority". But it can seem a bit more passionate than it would need to be.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King